Need Immediate Help!

Our desktop has a black screen with a lot of info. on it and the main sentence is: "Primary Master Hard Disk S.M.A.R.T. Status Bad" is there at the bottom. It tells me to backup my files because failure is imminent. I have Emachines, Windows XP.

It won't allow me to backup my files no matter what I do! I can't boot from the CD, I can't boot without - when I try, it just gives me a black screen with the cursor blinking, but I don't know which command to put in there.

Please help me asap! I was just going to back up my drives tomorrow, so this is like a cruel joke.

What I want most is it to boot up to Windows so I can copy my important files onto my laptop. Then if I lose my hard drive, I won't be too devastated...even though it's only 3 years old.

Thanks,
Stephanie

 

Have you tried booting into safe mode.

 

Hey Halo!
Thanks for this. It's really good to know for the future. The problem was that I couldn't boot at all in any mode...I only could get to BIOS and then back to the error page. So I had to bring it to a wizard and keep my fingers crossed that he can get my husband's files off. We just can't believe our luck. We had actually planned and talked about which files I needed to backup for him and this happened the next day. Crazy. Anyway, I got a new HD, installed it and the OS...and now have the fun time of reloading everything before I head back to LA tomorrow.
I'm going to keep this thread though because this wizard is going to cost us hundreds of dollars. So thanks again and thanks Risk Reversal for trying to help me!
Stephanie

 

Yup. It's as well to remember that there are only two kinds of hard drive. Those that have failed, and those that will fail. It's only a question of time. (Years, in most cases -- but not always.)

 

So true, so true. That guy is STILL trying to get our files off...he's telling us it's not easy. I'm wondering if I should just get it back from him and try your way. He's very experienced - just a weirdo....so a little part of me thinks he's making it up.

 

It's good to know that a lot of money can buy your data back. I'll let my husband know about that. Also, no, our HD didn't make any odd noises when dying.

 

Most of the S.M.A.R.T. drives that I have come across in the past, (I used to work for Compaq), have spare tracks on them, and when they detect a bad sector / track, they copy the data to the the spare bit.

The on-board system monitors this as the spare tracks fill up, and warns you before they are full. This flags that there are an unacceptable ammount of errors on the main drive, but everything should still function. I've seen drives still working six months after the first warning!

A simple slave to a good OS drive should get everything readable again.

Maybe the technology on your drive is different, or it may have failed completely. Good luck!

 

I worked on an eMachines T6000 just the other day with the same "Primary Master Hard Disk S.M.A.R.T. Status Bad" error. The system was turned off one night and the next day it booted to that error screen. No odd noises either before it took its final dump. Drive was a 160Gb Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9....3 years old. Tried several different HDD recovery tools, slaved it and still wasn't able to retrieve any data. Dead as a hammer. Fortunately most of the data had been saved to CD's.

 

Certainly sounds like different technology from that to which I used to know. Then again, Cpq always was expensive.

 

Well, this sounds promising and makes sense to me. Perhaps I'll pass this onto the wizard that's trying to get my files off.

 

I just had to post that the guy trying to get our files tells us that it's going to take him 10 hours to do it and is charging us $1000. Is this customary in his expertise? I'm just livid that I was just going to drag and drop these files to my laptop (it was networked) the very next day and now I'm out $1000 to possibly get these files and $300 for the new HD and other place that tried it before. Surely this is a bad dream. I would love some comfort in knowing that this is the usual price for such a service.
Thanks!

 

I've never had to pay a professional for those services, but the quoted price doesn't surprise me from what I've seen advertised.

He's asking $100/hr for his time, expertise, and his specialized tools and setup. That's not huge. Your average PC repair/setup shop would charge something close to that. And your average doctor/lawyer/consultant might charge 3-4 times that.

And if he's a professional in the hard drive recovery field, he'll know all about S.M.A.R.T. technology and how it works. There'll be no need to tell him.

But if he's not a pro that has specialized in that field, spend your money on someone with a track record in the field. It won't cost you any more.

 

Thanks, Rob. That gives me peace of mind. He's the person that Circuit City (where we bought our computer) recommends and he talks like a pro...but being a New Yorker, I can't help but question good talk.

 

Not to worry -- New Yorkers don't have a monoply on careful scepticism!

I should have thought to suggest googling a search term like ["hard drive" "data recovery"] (with the quotes but without the square brackets). You'll get links to a lot of companies that do that kind of work. Some of them quote prices on-line. Some of them don't charge if they don't recover your data. But check out any you consider dealing with through your local BBB. Some are better than others at delivering what they promise.